Govt to unveil public servants pay hike today
By Oscar P. Clarke
Stabroek News
November 20, 2002
The government is to announce a wage increase for public servants today and it may go beyond its last offer of three percent, sources say.
The move comes after the government and the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), for a second year running, deadlocked in negotiations for increases for public servants. A move to arbitration stalemated over the terms of reference for the panel to consider.
Government has therefore decided to fix a wage hike for the sector retroactive to January 2002 since it says public servants are demanding that it act to allow them to benefit from an increase before the Christmas holidays. The last offer on the table was three percent but sources say that a higher figure was being floated in some government circles.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday afternoon, Permanent Secretary, Public Service Ministry (PSM), Dr Nanda K. Gopaul, announced that the proposal engaged Cabinet's attention at its weekly meeting yesterday.
Cabinet Secretary, Dr Roger Luncheon is expected to make an announcement today on an award as a consequence of Cabinet's deliberations. While declining to give a figure Gopaul said it would be based on the availability of funds and would be without prejudice to the union and any further talks.
But GPSU President, Patrick Yarde said the government was falsely claiming that it was responding to a cry from public servants.
According to Yarde the administration was attempting to legitimise the decision by saying that the workers demanded it and he warned that "all decisions have consequences."
Yarde argued that the decision to make the payout was hinged on the fact that government needed to give the impression that it had settled the wages issue to draw down on the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) funds.
"They are desperate to access international funding," Yarde said. The union, he added, was "not the least bit bothered" about government's intentions, while stressing that it [the union] knows what it has to do in the prevailing circumstances.
"What they do will be publicised and quantified...and properly assessed by everyone, and would be a basis for their response," Yarde said.
Earlier, Gopaul attributed government's actions to the need to make a timely payment to workers to avoid what he said is frustration especially with the Christmas season fast approaching.
According to Gopaul the decision was made to offer public servants an increase, after an examination of the last two weeks of the situation in relation to the wage issue.
The situation, the PS said, was further complicated when the person mutually chosen to chair the arbitration tribunal for deliberation on public servants' wages, Father Malcolm Rodrigues declined consideration.
Chief Labour Officer, Mohamed Akeel contacted on Monday had told Stabroek News that Rodrigues had cited commitments in Trinidad and Tobago as the reason for his unavailability.
It was Gopaul's hope that the parties could meet as soon as the festive season is over and before the budget, to deal substantially with the wages issue.
He said the impasse must not preclude the two sides from talking and it must also not preclude government from giving relief to public servants.
Gopaul also said nothing in the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) guidelines prevented a government from making moves to break an impasse when such a stage had been reached.
